[G] Zerg Guide to Macro-Aggression - Page 4

Absolutely loved this guide. I am a very passive, reactive zerg player and typically don't start becoming aggressive until I have mutas. I need to learn to be more aggressive with roaches so I found that this guide will not only help me with a nuanced timing against terran, it will also help me with my roach play all-around for the rest of my matchups.

Also loved the breakdown of the macro mechanics and drone control in maximizing the potential of this timing and zerg play in general.

I've always felt similarly as far as the term "allin" goes. You're not necessarily behind when you make units early game; I don't see why you HAVE to constantly be far ahead in worker count. My favorite part of this opener is that even if you don't outright win or do a tremendous amount of damage, you either force marauders, take mining time, force bunkers, and generally don't allow them to be as greedy, which makes up for the fact that you're not droning wildly.

Something I wanted to ask was your images depicting a macro transition out of the build. It seems like you droned and teched like an absolute madman after your pressure. Is that a typical follow up just because you don't really have to worry about a counter after you attack, or do you usually follow up this way?

The problem I always had with playing defensively as Zerg playing against P and T was always the fact that there are ridiculous powerful 2base builds for P and T and if you don't throw them off in their build and they trained it to near-perfection (which isn't all too difiicult if you can't be harrassed), you are basically hit with a grandmaster build at plat level.

If you do throw them off and are good at multitasking, throwing them off does far more damage to them than real numbers can tell, because they won't know what to do at which point (when do I have to build the extra factory now ... because I had to overproduce units and bunkers and it's two minutes later and I'm floating minerals and....?).

On January 10 2012 17:33 ELYSiUMlol wrote:Something I wanted to ask was your images depicting a macro transition out of the build. It seems like you droned and teched like an absolute madman after your pressure. Is that a typical follow up just because you don't really have to worry about a counter after you attack, or do you usually follow up this way?

Generally, you wouldn't be able to max out as fast as the macro-lesson showcases. Most terran players will make a push or drop in the mid game (before infestors) and for that you need to have a decent zergling count. You can periodically add on a few lings here and there to stay safe, and they aren't useless if you aren't attacked because you can break rocks/scout/hold xel/etc (Think Stephano's ZvT) and then when you see a push just mash the 4sz. I always try to keep a considerable army on the field against terran, because if they push out I'm not the kind of player who wants to barely hold their attack to secure a macro advantage - I'm the kind of player who wants to demolish it and counter attack immediately.

Great write up! I used to be a really passive Zerg player, but this feels like a pretty good build to get started with agressive Zerg openers. I do wonder how you would transition into ling baneling muta from the roach ling timing attack, I'd say after you take your third, plop down 3 drones back in gas, get lair, get all extractors, something like that? Would still love to see some more specific timings on that, as I feel it could make a Terran feel pretty cornered to have a roach ling push come early and screw them over, only to seal the deal with mutas, would give not only great map control, but a psychological aspect to your game too.

As mentioned, even if you do NO damage whatsoever, the terran will not be able to take his expansion until siege mode is up. This is HUGE. AND you know his tech, you know you can drone like 100% behind this and not have to think about "well, what about these 4 hellions at the bottom of my ramp suddenly become 12 blueflame hellions?".

In addition, when the midgame push (which will be delayed) will finally come, it's a huge difference if you start making your army from close to 0 and maybe just have made another round of drones, or if you start from the remainders of your first push, having around 6 roaches and 25 lings already. This is a great safety net.

On January 11 2012 00:54 ExodusHydrA wrote:Great write up! I used to be a really passive Zerg player, but this feels like a pretty good build to get started with agressive Zerg openers. I do wonder how you would transition into ling baneling muta from the roach ling timing attack, I'd say after you take your third, plop down 3 drones back in gas, get lair, get all extractors, something like that? Would still love to see some more specific timings on that, as I feel it could make a Terran feel pretty cornered to have a roach ling push come early and screw them over, only to seal the deal with mutas, would give not only great map control, but a psychological aspect to your game too.

Yeah that's basically it. Start your 3rd and start droning while you do your push, take gases/lair before you start bane nest / evo. Start your spire as soon as lair is done (by the time you start spire, you should have 4 gases). It's not my preferred option, I'm a big fan of roach/ling/bane or mass upgraded ling/infestor but it's definitely viable to go into muta.

So, this is a build that is pretty much all-in? Because even though you call it a 'macro' agression, if you lose your whole army after attacking the Terran...they pretty much win. Thoughts?

PS: If your goal is to be doing a big attack so early, why even add the second hatchery? Like I said, if you lose your army...you lose the game essentially. So why not just save yourself the minerals and time and attack earlier with a bigger army?

On January 11 2012 05:39 pulpSC wrote:So, this is a build that is pretty much all-in? Because even though you call it a 'macro' agression, if you lose your whole army after attacking the Terran...they pretty much win. Thoughts?

I see what you mean, but It's pretty hard to have that large of an army and get shut down outright. They'd need to have tanks sieged up on the high ground and have bunkers with depots in front. In that situation, it's pretty obvious the correct move is to retreat and not lose everything by pushing up the ramp. You're almost always going to get a decent exchange on your units if you engage, just due to the size and strength of the roach/ling composition.

Hi Tang, its KenZy Instead of bashing this thread, I will say its really good because I spent about 20 minutes trying to find something wrong with it but I guess you're so damn good. Nice to see variety in your guides, ty.

Why send the first 2 drones to empty mineral patches? You can send them to the closest mineral patch to their egg. If you know how to time it. You just have to right click the drone so it doesn't transfer all the way to the farther mineral patches.

You have to time it so that the as the drone is popping out of its egg is when the other drone is just getting to one of their (close) mineral patches (send it to that one) (The mineral patch where the drone just arrived when the egg pops)

Here's the thing. I'm a high masters protoss player but I have a lot of knowledge about the game from all 3 races.

On Metal and Antiga, I play a lot of people that go for a 6pool and then just gogogo right to the gold. It works very well DEPENDING ON THE OPENING THAT I USE. It's very coin-flippy. As is this first attack. I have a practice partner that does something similar (I also play Terran at a master's level.) And there are a lot of holes in the build, midgame timings and such that can catch builds like this with its pants down when the earlygame timing comes and does minimal damage. In order to hit your "max ling infestor ultra w upps at 15:30" you need to cut an insane amount of corners.

On January 11 2012 07:47 GleaM wrote:Here's the thing. I'm a high masters protoss player but I have a lot of knowledge about the game from all 3 races.

On Metal and Antiga, I play a lot of people that go for a 6pool and then just gogogo right to the gold. It works very well DEPENDING ON THE OPENING THAT I USE. It's very coin-flippy. As is this first attack. I have a practice partner that does something similar (I also play Terran at a master's level.) And there are a lot of holes in the build, midgame timings and such that can catch builds like this with its pants down when the earlygame timing comes and does minimal damage. In order to hit your "max ling infestor ultra w upps at 15:30" you need to cut an insane amount of corners.

You're absolutely right. In a real ladder game, I would almost never drone consistently to 15:30 - it's pretty suicidal, I just used that game to illustrate the point. In terms of handling counter-pressure, you'd be surprised how well-equipped you are to deal with midgame terran pushes. You'll usually have a few roaches and lings over, and 3 hatch/queen can produce an insane amount of Zerglings. At this stage in the game, active scouting and map vision are crucial so that you can immediately start building units when you see a move-out but you can hold most any timing attack assuming your macro after your roaches/lings

As a reference, check out this game I played against a top-master terran on EU. He opened super-economical, getting 2 Command centers extremely early. I take my 3rd while I attack, and while I do virtually no damage, I'm able to keep even with a 3base terran and eventually win with maxed out ling/infestor/ultra: http://drop.sc/85214.

On January 11 2012 07:47 GleaM wrote:Here's the thing. I'm a high masters protoss player but I have a lot of knowledge about the game from all 3 races.

On Metal and Antiga, I play a lot of people that go for a 6pool and then just gogogo right to the gold. It works very well DEPENDING ON THE OPENING THAT I USE. It's very coin-flippy. As is this first attack. I have a practice partner that does something similar (I also play Terran at a master's level.) And there are a lot of holes in the build, midgame timings and such that can catch builds like this with its pants down when the earlygame timing comes and does minimal damage. In order to hit your "max ling infestor ultra w upps at 15:30" you need to cut an insane amount of corners.

You're absolutely right. In a real ladder game, I would almost never drone consistently to 15:30 - it's pretty suicidal, I just used that game to illustrate the point. In terms of handling counter-pressure, you'd be surprised how well-equipped you are to deal with midgame terran pushes. You'll usually have a few roaches and lings over, and 3 hatch/queen can produce an insane amount of Zerglings. At this stage in the game, active scouting and map vision are crucial so that you can immediately start building units when you see a move-out but you can hold most any timing attack assuming your macro after your roaches/lings

As a reference, check out this game I played against a top-master terran on EU. He opened super-economical, getting 2 Command centers extremely early. I take my 3rd while I attack, and while I do virtually no damage, I'm able to keep even with a 3base terran and eventually win with maxed out ling/infestor/ultra: http://drop.sc/85214.

Watching replay:

10:40 - 3 base to 3 base, 42 scvs (+3 orbitals of mule) to 40 drones with lings on the way11:45 - You don't have any knowledge of infrastructure; you only see a rax and a fact. If he had decided to get stim + combat shields a bit more aggressively, (which really wouldn't have cut his units too much imo) and pushed with 4 tank 6 hellion 24 stim + CS rines, you'd be in huuge trouble because all you have is mass ling with no bling nest. Idk... I don't wanna analyze / bash your play, but you have to admit that if the terran didn't let you sit and if he wasn't extremely passive, you would never have been able to catch up in drone count. From 50 drones, if he had pushed, you would not have been allowed to make any more drones if you were playing someone less passive. I don't know bro, do you see what I'm saying?Not to mention his terrible scouting and decisionmaking... massing turret vs a no spire Zerg.

Great read man! If I weren't in the process of moving, I would have booted up SC2 and tried this guide out earlier today! I've always enjoyed playing an aggressive Zerg style but it's nice to have someone who knows what they're talking about to base my play on haha.

I love you tang. I've done similar things vs Terran (mid-master) and you can deny their natural until they get siege mode.

One good tactic is if you see Terran going early CC with ovie scout or many bad Terrans do it near the ramp where you can see it.

Doing a 2 base baneling/speedling bust is viable and not all in against a Terran going early 2nd base just make sure you have enough banelings to break the wall and speedlings rallied in to occupy marines hellions while the banelings go straight for the mineral line. Send half the banelings on the other side of the CC to trap he fleeing scv's.

I usually don't go roach in ZvT at all unless I'm doing an all in but il definitely give your build a try thanks for this.